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Gourmet Business Solutions expanding to Guaynabo

GBS is in the business of providing gourmet coffee blends, flavorings, syrups, frappe mixes, chocolate powders and sauces.

GBS is in the business of providing gourmet coffee blends, flavorings, syrups, frappe mixes, chocolate powders and sauces.

For a Puerto Rican company dedicated to sweetening and enhancing the taste of alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages, this year couldn’t be any sweeter.

Come the middle of this month, Gourmet Business Solutions will be in a new location in the metropolitan area where it has taken over a building in the Santiago Iglesias Urbanization in Guaynabo that is 10 times as large as its former base in Caguas.

And if company President Jorge López’s projections are on target, the company could be heading to a record year with sales expected to reach $3 million vis-à-vis $1.3 million last year.

A prize-winning barista-turned-entrepreneur, López is riding a wave of success thanks to Puerto Rico’s love of coffee, chocolate and beverages with or without alcohol.

His company is in the business of providing gourmet coffee blends, flavorings, syrups, frappe mixes, chocolate powders and sauces. It also offers a wide selection of barista tools and bar products ranging from plastic pourers, tongs and jiggers to commercial blenders and whipped cream dispensers. In all, the company offers some 600 products by recognized brands such as Monin, Ghirardelli, Cappuccine, Caffe D’Amore, Vitamix and Rocket.

GBS sells to both the public and the food and beverage industry, including hotels, restaurants, bars and coffee bars.

Besides its extensive line of products, GBS also provides various services to its food and beverage clients, including trainings, seminars and workshops.

While acknowledging the presence of competitors, López described his company as “the king of flavors” and a trend-setter whose success is based on “a winning formula, quality, good service, listening to clients and always smiling.”

The company’s move to San Juan will give it greater access to its clients, according to López.

With 10,000 square feet of space at its disposal, the new headquarters is a far cry from its former 1,100 square-foot base, which will remain open as a secondary outlet. The spacious new digs will accommodate a showroom as well as a liquid lab for testing recipes and giving product demonstrations to clients.

Investment in the new location, a building that López is renting with an option to buy, is around $60,000, he said.

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